Dile

This article is about the Generation 1 Autobot. For the movieverse Autobot, see Dairu.

Dile is an Autobot Mini-Cassette from the Generation 1 continuity family.

Who's got two thumbs and can rapidly detect energy? THIS guy!

Dile (ダイル Dairu) is the Autobots' energy resource scout and a Mini-Cassette. His thumbs contain high-powered energy sensors. Unfortunately, Dile has a keen curiosity, bringing him to major system failures when investigating sources of energy.

As a member of the W Cassettebot sub-sub-group, he can combine with his partner Zaur to form the humanoid robot Legout.

Fiction

Metrowars

Dile was presumably present as part of Legout when Legout was stationed at Scramble City. Metrowars

Games

Transformers: Earth Wars

Toys

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers

Transforms from extinct recording medium to extinct animal, and back again!

• Dairu [sic] (W Cassettebot, 1987)

• ID number: C-123
• Accessories: Left and right "Wave Blasters"

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers Dile is a mini-cassette that transforms into what appears to be a green Iguanodon. He has a good range of articulation with movement at the neck, arms, hips, knees and tail. Two silver chromed "Wave Blasters" plug into the faux cassette tape holes near his hips (not his neck as in the picture to the right). In tape mode, he fits into the chest compartment of Blaster or Soundwave (and their retooled reincarnations).

Dile combines with Zaur to form the upper body of their combined mode Legout. In this form, Dile's guns form over-the-shoulder artillery.

As one of the vanishingly few toys unique to the Headmasters toy line and something of a tail-ender within the line, Dile and the other three "dino-cassettes" command ridiculous sums on the secondary market. ($1,000 for the pair is not unknown.) Their actual rarity is questionable, though; similar "exclusive holy grails" Stepper, Artfire, Twincast, and Soundblaster were uncommon, but not vanishingly rare, yet still commanded top dollar due to overseas perception (until they got reissued, at any rate). After some decades of this, their high price status may at last change after their rerelease in the Studio Series line—except, perhaps, for MISB collectors.

Dile was recreated and reissued as Studio Series Dairu and Uriad.

• More information on Dile at TFU.info
• W Cassettes toy article at TF-1.com

Studio Series

Predating the 2019 Mini-Cassette reissues in the Vintage G1 toyline, Hasbro recreated the W Cassettebot molds that form Legout and sold them separately in the Studio Series toyline inside two multipacks advertising the Bumblebee film. While these were marketed as a part of the live-action film series, they are quite clearly intended to be reissues of the original toys and were presumably packed into these sets as the future of the Vintage G1 line at the time was uncertain.

Notes

Who's got no thumbs and has colors based on the washed-out scan of the card art seen at the top of this page at first?

• A common fan interpretation of Dile's name is "Dial". However, "Dial" is rendered in Japanese as daiyaru (ダイヤル) or daiaru (ダイアル), not dairu (ダイル). "Dile" is likely a shortening and modification of "reptile" (レプタイル reputairu), with ta (タ) changed to da (ダ) in a fairly common form of Japanese word play. His partner, Zaur, has a name that is a shortened and modified form of "dinosaur", so "Dile" would be a parallel to that.
• In Transformers: Earth Wars, Dile was revealed in early September 2020 with an unusual white and purple deco which doesn't match his toy's colors at all. It was almost two months later by the end of October that they choose to rectify it, claiming that the white deco was based on the washed-out scan of his card art at the top of this page, opting for a more light-green and silver deco this time (still according to the scanned card art). However, they never updated the main render on the official Earth Wars wiki's character page.